Chapter 53
His kind daughter didn’t seem to notice that something was off; instead, she looked at Saren with a worried expression.
“Are you all right? Still, you’ve gotten a lot stronger. There aren’t many people who can endure that much against Father.”
A trace of admiration flickered across Ariel’s face.
For Saren to withstand such pressure when the Duke of Clastar was one of the Empire’s foremost warriors…
He had only begun to handle mana not long ago, and yet he managed to endure.
From the tremendous growth in such a short time, one could easily guess not only his great talent but also the relentless training he must have gone through.
Then Saren leaned slightly toward Ariel and blinked at her.
“Mm, I worked really hard because I wanted praise from you when we met again.”
He rubbed his forehead against Ariel’s shoulder like he was acting cutesy.
“Hurry up and praise me. Pat my head. Please? I really did my best. Hmm?”
‘Am I supposed to praise him?’
Ariel tilted her head.
She didn’t really understand why she had to praise Saren, but it wasn’t as if it was a difficult thing to do.
‘Life at the Magic Tower must have been rough on him.’
Thinking so, Ariel reached out with her small hand and gently patted Saren’s head.
“You worked hard.”
Saren beamed at her touch.
In contrast, the Duke of Clastar’s face crumpled as though he had smelled rotten fish.
Without Ariel realizing it, the first battle between Saren and the Duke of Clastar ended in Saren’s victory.
The Duke ground his teeth and crossed his arms.
He had originally intended to tear that snake into pieces the moment he saw him.
But to think his daughter had been brought here and made to face that vile creature.
Even cutting him into eight pieces would not be enough.
“If your chatter is done, may I begin the briefing?”
A woman with a stern expression spoke up.
She was Elta Reven, daughter of Count Reven, who had been defending the fortress.
Perhaps because she had recently lost many knights to monster attacks, a faint sadness lingered on her face.
“As I said before, the situation is dire. A great number of our knights have lost their lives, and 70 percent of the knights sent to support us by House Duke Vianev are either dead or unable to fight.”
“It is indeed serious. Was the count’s house completely unprepared against monsters?”
“Of course not! Our house has devoted much effort to protecting the Swaltzel Mines!”
“But the results are poor.”
The Duke replied indifferently.
“We had no choice! This is the first time so many monsters have appeared around the mines. And somehow, they’ve grown abnormally strong…”
“Excuses. Since when did monsters care about human circumstances when appearing?”
Elta glared at the Duke.
The Duke smiled.
On his handsome face, that smile was dazzling.
But the words that came out of his mouth were razor sharp.
“Ah, do you dislike me speaking this way? What can be done? Had you not been so weak, I wouldn’t have needed to bother coming here at all. If you must resent someone, resent your own weakness.”
Ariel gasped and turned to the Duke.
‘C-can he really say that?’
His words were so blunt that she would have understood if Elta suddenly slapped him across the face.
Yet the knights around them seemed unfazed, as if they were used to the Duke speaking like this.
It was as if their faces said, ‘Ah, our lord is at it again.’
“Your words are harsh.”
Elta bristled with anger, and the Duke replied coldly.
“Did I say anything false? Whether the numbers are doubled or tripled, your duty remains the same.”
Murderous intent swirled across his face.
It was rage honed sharp by long years of grinding and suppression.
Clearer and fiercer than anyone else present.
“Whatever it is, trample it and kill it. Is that not so?”
Ariel unconsciously touched her chest where the brand of the Evil Dragon lingered.
Even though it couldn’t be possible, she felt as though the Duke’s chilling golden eyes were reading her innermost secrets.
As if his sword might pierce through her at any moment.
That was precisely why she forced herself to appear calm.
Of all people, she could not allow the Duke to see through her.
The Duke spread out the map of the mines.
“There is no need to delay in sweeping away the Evil Dragon’s remnants. By His Majesty’s command, I shall take command from here.”
Ariel sat by the window, gazing down at the view below, clear of monsters.
‘I wanted to follow Father and observe the monsters more closely.’
Once he was granted command, the Duke immediately led the knights to wipe out the monsters near the fortress.
Each swing of his sword called down lightning that blackened every monster in the vicinity.
Within three days, he had cleared the area around the fortress. This morning, he marched out further afield to eliminate more monsters.
‘I wanted to see if there were traces of dark magic.’
But the Duke had forbade her from even approaching the monsters, saying it was too dangerous.
‘Our daughter must guard the fortress in Father’s place.’
A fine-sounding excuse.
But…
‘Guard the fortress? When Father has already killed them all, leaving not a single monster?’
At this rate, there was no point in having followed him here.
Saren was away, drawing magic circles with the mages from the Tower, and the knights were busy with patrols.
It seemed she was the only one with nothing to do.
When she sighed, the Duke’s knights hurried toward her.
“My lady, are you hungry? Shall we bring you a snack?”
“Are you tired? Would you like to take a nap?”
Ever since rescuing the dwarves together, the knights had started talking to Ariel far more often.
And since she didn’t seem to dislike it, their confidence grew.
On top of that, the Duke had explicitly ordered them to take good care of her in his absence, so they felt no hesitation.
“My lady, if you have a moment, may I please… try holding your sword just once…!”
“Hey! Didn’t we agree not to bring up that stuff while the lady is resting? Anyway, my lady, isn’t this flower pretty? I saw it blooming nearby and picked it for you. What do you think?”
But there were some who looked on with disapproval.
The Reven Knights—original defenders of the fortress and retainers of House Reven.
“Hah, how disgraceful for knights to fawn like that.”
“No matter if she’s a noble’s daughter, she’s still just a child. Don’t they feel ashamed of groveling like that?”
The Duke’s knights, whose senses were sharp, could not possibly fail to hear them.
“What did those bastards just say?”
“Are they picking a fight with us?”
“Ah, forgive us. We were talking about a novel we read yesterday. Did you overhear?”
The Reven Knights smirked as they offered their excuse, and another chimed in.
“Come now, you should have spoken more clearly.”
“Yes, yes, it was only a story from a book. Who would have guessed they’d misunderstand?”
Then the “novel” talk began in earnest among the Reven Knights.
“So the commoner girl pretends to be a noble lady?”
“Right, but since she grew up as a commoner, she obviously lacks any noble refinement. They say it’s that unpolished charm that attracts others, but I don’t understand it.”
“Well, maybe they just feel kinship since her background is like theirs.”
The only noble lady here who had once been a commoner was Ariel.
The Duke’s knights glared at the Reven Knights with murderous intent.
‘Those bastards.’
‘No matter how you hear it, they’re insulting our lady.’
They wanted nothing more than to smash their fists into those mocking faces, but they restrained themselves.
‘If we act rashly, it might only make our lady look foolish.’
After all, it was only “a novel story.”
If they overreacted, the others might say, “Why so sensitive? Is Ariel self-conscious about her commoner origins?”
“And in the end, being a commoner, she just couldn’t adapt to noble life. She wound up humiliated by the real noble lady…”
The mocking “novel” story went on.
The Duke’s knights trembled with fury, on the verge of charging in.
The Reven Knights thought to themselves, smirking inwardly:
‘They’re holding back better than I expected. I thought they’d already be throwing punches.’
‘Let’s see if they can keep enduring this.’
“But of course, a commoner is a commoner. Supposedly, she was such a glutton she stuffed food into her mouth nonstop whenever she saw it.”
“Well, she grew up starving, so what do you expect?”
That barb was aimed squarely at the Duke’s knights doting on Ariel’s meals.
“You bastards!”
Finally, a few hot-tempered knights from Clastar House shot to their feet.
The Reven Knights cheered inwardly.
‘Perfect.’
‘Now we just have to take a beating, and we’ll have an excuse to drive them out of the fortress.’
House Clastar had come to assist House Reven, but not everyone welcomed them.
If the Duke’s house accomplished something great, they might take the mines for themselves.
With the Duke away on a monster hunt for several days, only Ariel and a handful of knights remained in the fortress.
‘All we need is for them to throw the first punch, and we’ll gladly let them hit us. Then we’ll use it as a pretext to expel them.’
“You bastards, I’ve had enough—”
Some of Clastar’s hotheaded knights strode toward the Reven Knights, fists clenched, ready to smash a jaw.
At that moment, Ariel rose from her seat.
“Enough, all of you.”
Her voice was not loud.
But with that single command, the furious knights froze mid-step.
Even with their anger boiling over, they obeyed Ariel’s order without hesitation.
The Reven Knights’ eyes gleamed at the sight.
‘What’s this? They stopped just from her one word?’
‘Does that mean she’s completely mastered control over them?’
Slowly, Ariel turned her gaze toward the Reven Knights.
